NEW DELHI: Billionaire hedge fund operator George Soros, who was a major donor to Kamala Harris’s US presidential campaign, was at the centre of noisy exchanges between BJP and Congress on Thursday, with the former alleging that the 94-year-old was acting in collusion with the opposition in India to undermine the Modi government.
Citing the claims made by French media outlet Mediapart and others, BJP said in both Houses that Soros, through his proxies like Open Society Foundations, Human Rights Watch, and Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), has consistently been timing volleys of allegations to coincide with Parliament sessions in India which are then used by Congress and its functionaries to disrupt proceedings.
Congress members in both Houses protested against BJP’s attack which saw the saffron party levelling its allegation outside Parliament as well. “Agents of Adani have been given only one task – to defame and abuse those who expose their mega corruption. We do not tolerate the objectionable words used against LOP Rahul Gandhi, Wayanad MP Priyanka Gandhi and the Congress party by Adani Agent Nishikant Dubey on the floor of the House,” AICC general secretary K C Venugopal posted on X.
BJP found its ammunition in disclosures by a group of foreign media outlets – French investigative online newspaper Mediapart, German broadcaster NDR, Drop Site News of the US and others – that OCCRP was created by the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), which provides almost half of its funding and vets its employees. The report said that Soros’s Open Society Foundations was another important funder of OCCRP, which has been associated with investigative projects like on Israeli spyware Pegasus and allegations of stock manipulation by Adani Group which were used by the opposition to attack the Modi government.
The report also said Drew Sullivan, head of OCCRP, was an airspace engineer by training who had worked on a US spy satellite project enjoying ‘top secret security clearance’. It also said US army officer David Hodgkinson, who made the creation of OCCRP possible, was deployed by the US in 25 countries. He later held senior positions in the state department and the White House while continuing as an army reservist.
Citing the report, BJP member Nishikant Dubey alleged that Soros had used OCCRP to derail India’s development under PM Modi’s leadership, with Congress being a willing accessory. He said OCCRP’s allegations, including about the doubtful efficacy of India-made Covid vaccines, were synchronised with Parliament sessions and were seized upon by the opposition to disrupt proceedings.
Congress members were up on their feet protesting against Dubey as he tried to put questions to Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi. Similar scenes were witnessed in Rajya Sabha, with BJP’s Sudhanshu Trivedi referring to disclosures about OCCRP and their timing to demand a discussion and a probe. “It is not just a coincidence,” he said.
Speaking on ‘Concerns over Suspicious and Conspicuous Attacks on National Interest from Abroad’ during zero hour, Trivedi cited instances in the past three years when issues concerning India were raised by international entities just before or during Parliament sessions. Referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim about a foreign attempt to influence Lok Sabha elections, Trivedi said there were attempts to obstruct India’s rise as a “strategic, economic and diplomatic power”. His reference to the recent indictment of Adani group by a US court also coinciding with the winter session had Congress members on their feet who said Trivedi was seeking to defend the corporate house.
Amid the uproar, RS Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar said, “We cannot allow the largest democracy to be made dysfunctional by ‘deep state’. This House should be united in neutralising any trend or initiative that is dangerous to our sovereignty.”
BJP extended its offensive beyond Parliament, with party spokesperson Sambit Patra launching a vicious attack on Rahul Gandhi. Patra said leader of opposition had attacked Covaxin based on an OCCRP report about cancellation of a Brazilian contract for the vaccine developed in India. “I have no hesitation in saying he (Rahul) is a traitor of the highest order,” he said. Referring to the Mediapart report, Patra said OCCRP had over 50 media partners across several continents and depended massively on Soros and “deep state” agencies in the US to fund its work. The Mediaprt report cited New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Der Spiegel, Suddeutsche Zeitung and Le Monde as among OCCRP’s media partners. “If they are getting 70% of their resources from one source, then they cannot be neutral,” Patra said.
Mediapart said OCCRP was required to respect the US Foreign Assistance Act which concerns aid disbursed abroad and stipulates funding must be “aligned with and advance US foreign policy and economic interests”. “It does advance American foreign policy when you have good investigative reporters around the world. That’s why they gave us the grant in the first place,” Sullivan told Mediapart even as he insisted that “there was never an attempt to influence anything that we were doing”.